Birthday's to share this week : 16th - 22nd April 2017.

Do you celebrate your Birthday this week?

Claire Foy does on 16th April - check out my tribute to this Birthday Girl turning 33, at the end of this feature.

Do you also share your birthday with a well known, highly regarded & famous Actor or Actress; share your special day with a Director, Producer, Writer, Cinematographer, Singer/Songwriter or Composer of repute; or share an interest in whoever might notch up another year in the coming seven days? Then, look no further! Whilst there will be too many to mention in this small but not insignificant and beautifully written and presented Blog, here are the more notable and noteworthy icons of the big screen, and the small screen, that you will recognise, and that you might just share your birthday with in the week ahead. If so, Happy Birthday to you from Odeon Online!

Sunday 16th April

• Ellen Barkin - Born 1954, turns 63 - Actress | Producer
• Claire Foy - Born 1984, turns 33 - Actress
• Anya Taylor-Joy - Born 1996, turns 21 - Actress
• Martin Lawrence - Born 1965, turns 52 - Actor | Producer | Writer | Director
• Lukas Haas - Born 1976, turns 41 - Actor | Singer | Songwriter  

Monday 17th April

• Nick Hornby - Born 1957, turns 60 - Writer | Producer
• Sean Bean - Born 1959, turns 58 - Actor | Producer
• Jennifer Garner - Born 1972, turns 45 - Actress | Producer
• Rooney Mara - Born 1985, turns 32 - Actress | Producer  

Tuesday 18th April

• Hayley Mills - Born 1946, turns 71 - Actress
• Maria Bello - Born 1967, turns 50 - Actress | Producer
• America Ferrera - Born 1984, turns 33 - Actress | Producer
• Britt Robertson - Born 1990, turns 27 - Actress
• James Woods - Born 1947, turns 70 - Actor | Producer
• Rick Moranis - Born 1953, turns 64 - Actor | Writer | Producer
• Eric Roberts - Born 1956, turns 61 - Actor 
• David Tennant - Born 1971, turns 46 - Actor
• Eli Roth - Born 1972, turns 45 - Actor | Producer | Writer | Director  
• Edgar Wright - Born 1974, turns 43 - Director | Writer | Producer | Actor  

Wednesday 19th April

• Tim Curry - Born 1946, turns 71 - Actor | Singer
• James Franco - Born 1978, turns 39 - Actor | Producer | Director | Writer | Singer
• Hayden Christensen - Born 1981, turns 36 - Actor | Producer
• Ashley Judd - Born 1968, turns 49 - Actress | Producer
• Kate Hudson - Born 1979, turns 38 - Actress | Producer | Director | Writer | Singer  

Thursday 20th April

• Jessica Lange - Born 1949, turns 68 - Actress | Producer | Singer
• Leslie Phillips - Born 1924, turns 93 - Actor | Producer
• Ryan O'Neal - Born 1941, turns 76 - Actor 
• Andy Serkis - Born 1964, turns 53 - Actor | Producer | Director | Singer 
• Nicholas Lyndhurst - Born 1961, turns 56 - Actor

Friday 21st April

• Charles Grodin - Born 1935, turns 82 - Actor | Writer | 
• Toby Stephens - Born 1969, turns 48 - Actor | Writer | Director 
• James McAvoy - Born 1979, turns 38 - Actor | Producer
• Andie MacDowell - Born 1958, turns 59 - Actress | Producer | 
• Gugu Mbatha-Raw - Born 1983, turns 34 - Actress | Singer

Saturday 22nd April

• Amber Heard - Born 1986, turns 31 - Actress | Producer | Singer
• Jack Nicholson - Born 1937, turns 80 - Actor | Producer | Writer | Director | Singer
• John Waters - Born 1946, turns 71 - Actor | Writer | Director | Producer 
• Lee Tamahori - Born 1950, turns 67 - Director | 
• Jeffrey Dean Morgan - Born 1966, turns 51 - Actor 

Claire Foy was born in Stockport, Manchester, England to mother Caroline - a pharmaceutical company employee and father David Foy - a sales consultant. She is the youngest of three children, and with sister Gemma and brother Robert grew up in Manchester and Leeds. The family moved to Buckinghamshire because of her fathers job relocation, and at age eight her parents divorced. At twelve years of age Claire attended Aylesbury High School for Girls, before going on to Liverpool John Moore's University where she studied drama. She also trained for a year at the Oxford School of Drama, graduating from her studies in 2007, after which she moved to a shared house in Peckham in south-east London.

While studying at Oxford, Foy took roles in several stage plays. In 2008 she scored her small screen debut in a pilot episode of supernatural horror series 'Being Human' which continued its run over five series. That same year she also took a single episode on the BBC's long running medical soap opera 'Doctors'. Later that year she gained the lead role in the fourteen episode mini-series of Charles Dickens 'Little Dorrit' as Amy Dorrit alongside Matthew Macfadyen, Tom Courtenay, Andy Serkis and Eddie Marsan. This led to a role in the two part mini-series 'Terry Prachett's Going Postal' with Charles Dance, David Suchet, Andrew Sachs and Timothy West. This was followed up with made for television film 'Pulse'.

In 2011 Foy secured her big screen debut in the fantasy action adventure film 'Season of the Witch' with Nicolas Cage, Ron Perlman and Christopher Lee. That same year came drama film 'Wreckers' with Benedict Cumberbatch, and four episode mini-series 'The Promise' in which Foy took a leading role. Made for television film 'The Night Watch' was released too in 2011, and then 'Hacks' seeing out the year. In between time there was nine episodes over two series of the updated to 1936 London era 'Upstairs Downstairs' as Lady Persephone Towyne which ran from 2010 through to 2012. This led to another television mini-series running across six episodes in 2012 'White Heat' with Sam Claiflin, Jeremy Northam and Juliet Stevenson.

'Vampire Academy' followed in 2014 with Zoey Deutch, Gabriel Byrne, Olga Kurylenko and Joely Richardson, and that same year 'Crossbones' - a nine part mini-series set during the 1700's pirate years with John Malkovich as legendary pirate Edward 'Blackbeard' Teach. Later that year was biographical drama film 'Rosewater' with Gael Garcia Bernal as Iranian/Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari. Two episodes on the four-part mini-series 'The Great War : The People's Story' followed, and then Foy lent her voice work talents as the Narrator on drama documentary 'Frankenstein and the Vampyre : A Dark and Stormy Night' recounting the story of the evening in 1816 which led to the creation of Frankenstein and the first modern vampire story.

Highly acclaimed historical drama 'Wolf Hall' aired over six episodes in 2015 with Damien Lewis as King Henry VIII, Mark Rylance as his trusted advisor Thomas Cromwell and Foy as Anne Boleyn - the second wife of the King. The series also starred Bernard Hill, Tom Holland and Jonathan Pryce and picked up eleven award wins and 42 nominations including the Golden Globe and BAFTA for best limited television series.

This was followed up by a role in 'The Lady in the Van' with Maggie Smith, Jim Braodbent and Alex Jennings, and then her Golden Globe and SAG Award wins for her on the first season of the critically acclaimed Netflix production 'The Queen'. Here she plays the young Princess Elizabeth who ascends to the throne as HRH Queen Elizabeth II and charts her early years up to the mid/late 1960's. Her run however, will come to an end after Season Two concludes as Foy hands over to an older actress to portray the maturing Queen. Season Two is currently in production and goes to air later this year.

This brings us up to date, with love story feature film 'Breathe' due for release in October this year. Starring Andrew Garfield and Foy in the lead roles as husband and wife, this true story of Robin Cavendish is Directed by Andy Serkis and tells the story of how Cavendish became an advocate for the disabled after being diagnosed with Polio at age 28 and given three months to live. He was 64 when he died, confined to a wheelchair and could only breathe by artificial means having been paralysed from the neck down, but this didn't stop him! In between time there have been several stage play appearances over the years including most recently as Lady Macbeth opposite James McAvoy in 2013's 'Macbeth' production at London's West End Trafalgar Studios.

In 2014 Foy married British Actor Stephen Campbell Moore whom she starred alongside in 'Season of the Witch', 'Pulse' and 'Lady in the Van', and with whom she has a daughter, Amalia, born in early 2015. All up Foy has 22 acting credits to her name, she has two award wins for her performance on 'The Crown' and eight other nominations mostly for 'Wolf Hall' including a BAFTA nod.

Claire Foy - a star on the rise and increasingly in demand; has already achieved much in just the nine years since her breakout role but was never sure of her acting abilities when she worked in supermarkets and dead end jobs growing up; is a home girl at heart and is still getting used to being in the spotlight. We'll keep watching Claire as your star shines brighter and in the meantime Happy Birthday to you, from Odeon Online.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-